Senior Data Architect

** This is an opportunity to join our dynamic team of data engineering professionals working to design and implement database projects for our clients. This position is fully remote (indefinitely). ** 

Emergent Software is seeking a Senior Data Architect who is intelligent, passionate, detail-oriented, and enjoys working architecting scalable data platforms within the Microsoft suite of data solutions. This role serves as the technical lead for enterprise data platform engagements, guiding data engineers, driving architectural decisions, and ensuring the technical success of the project. This 100% remote position is for self-starters with good communication skills, strong work ethic, and the ability to manage work across numerous clients and priorities. This role requires a technical professional who thrives in dynamic environments, can wear multiple hats, and is passionate about designing, maintaining, and optimizing modern data platforms. 

Highlights & Benefits of working at Emergent Software 

• Work closely with other talented database professionals & software engineers. Our vetting process means you can count on your team members to know what they are talking about. 

• Work from home or work remotely from anywhere 

• Flexible work schedule meaning you can work regular hours or whenever you work best 

• Work-life balance is essential and highly valued at Emergent Software. If you choose to work more than 40 hours, you’ll be compensated for the extra work! 

• Work on interesting projects solving complex business problems with custom software. 

• 100 hours per year to focus on your professional development. We invest in your growth! 

• Profit sharing bonus means as we’re successful, you’re successful 

• Excellent benefits package including medical insurance, dental, vision, 401(k) matching, FSA, disability, life insurance, and paid parental leave 

Responsibilities 

• Architect end-to-end data platforms on Azure, ensuring scalability, resilience, and future-proof design 

• Lead design reviews and architectural decisions for large or complex client data projects 

• Facilitate the design of enterprise data models through the translation of business processes to model-oriented designs. 

• Own the creation and governance of conceptual, logical, and physical data models ensuring alignment across business domains. 

• Apply modern architectural approaches such as domain-driven design, data products, and distributed data ownership where appropriate. 

• Define and enforce modeling standards, naming conventions, and architectural guardrails across client projects. 

• Serve as the technical authority in client delivery, ensuring architectural decisions are followed through implementation with appropriate code reviews and governance. 

• Apply star-schema patterns to deploy iterative Kimball best practices to data warehouse design 

• Mentor and coach junior engineers on advanced Azure services, performance tuning, and cloud-native patterns 

• Drive cloud cost optimization strategies, ensuring clients use the right services at the right scale 

• Evaluate and recommend new Azure tools and technologies for inclusion in Emergent Software’s offerings 

• Lead client advisory on data platform modernization, migration strategies (e.g., on-prem to Azure), and data architecture maturity 

• Contribute to thought leadership, such as blog posts, webinars, or speaking engagements on Azure data topics 

• Architect data storage layers (Azure OneLake, Azure SQL, Synapse Analytics) for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data 

• Ensure data quality, validation, and lineage using tools like Azure Purview and integrate with governance frameworks 

• Collaborate with BI teams to prepare curated data models and tables for reporting in Power BI or downstream systems 

• Manage data security, privacy, and compliance (RBAC, encryption, sensitive data masking) across Azure services 

• Document data engineering solutions and adhere to Emergent Software’s delivery standards and Agile practices 

Senior Data Architect Required Experience 

• 10+ years of database development & architecture experience 

• 5+ years of experience with Azure database projects 

• Experience designing lakehouse architectures using ADLS/OneLake, Delta/Parquet, medallion layers, or equivalent patterns. 

• Expertise in dimensional modeling and normalization for operational data stores 

• Demonstrated ability to lead technical discovery sessions, run architecture workshops, and translate ambiguous business requirements into technical designs. 

• Experience designing semantic models for BI reporting 

• Ability to discuss potential data solutions with clients in the pre-sales process 

• Data warehouse design using Kimball design patterns and solutions 

• ETL development using Azure Data Factory 

• Building analytics solutions using Power BI 

• Experience optimizing Synapse, SQL pools, Fabric Warehouses, ADF mappings, etc. 

Nice to Have Experience 

• Experience building data solutions in Microsoft Fabric 

• Experience building data products or supporting Data Mesh operating models 

• Experience with DBT or CI/CD for data pipelines 

• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (Bicep, Terraform) for data deployments 

• Experience with Purview policy-based access control + lineage modeling 

• Modern programming for transformations (PySpark, Spark SQL, or .NET/C# data tooling) 

Our Vetting Process 

At Emergent Software, we work hard to find the best team members capable of contributing high quality work. If you think you’re one of those, please understand that the effort put into this by people like yourself helps us be successful in surrounding you with other top performers. Here are the steps of our vetting process for this position: 

• Application (5 minutes) 

• Online Assessment (30-40 minutes) 

• Initial Phone Interview (30-45 minutes) 

• Data Architect Challenge (45-60 minutes) 

• Technical Interview (60-90 minutes) 

• Final Interview (45-60 minutes) 

• Job Offer! 

Benefits Package Details

• Medical Insurance: up to 84% of your monthly medical premium (HSA options available)

• HSA Contribution: up to $200/month

• Dental & Vision Insurance: up to 50% of your monthly dental and vision premium costs

• 401(k) plan: company match up to 4% of salary

• Profit sharing bonus: up to 15% of salary paid quarterly

• Extra compensation: get paid extra for work over 40 hours/week

• Employee referral & customer referral bonuses

• Flex Spending Account (FSA) for Dependent Care & Healthcare Costs

• Short Term Disability: $500/week for 12 weeks

• Long Term Disability: up to $6,000/month

• Group term life and AD&D insurance: $50k

• PTO, standard holidays, 2 floating holidays

• Paid parental leave: up to 6 weeks for birthing parents; 2 weeks for non-birthing parents

• Staff development program: 100 hours/year plus training costs

About Emergent Software

Emergent Software is a fast-growing software development, cloud consulting, and data engineering company serving clients across the country. We are regularly adding to our team of talented software engineers, cloud architects, data engineers, UX designers, technical product owners and more who can help us deliver high quality services for our clients.

We are a remote-first company
Since our inception, we've embraced a remote-friendly culture, promoting work flexibility beyond the norm. When the pandemic struck in 2020, our transition to fully remote work was seamless—just a matter of cleaning out the fridge. Recognizing an opportunity, we adopted a remote-first approach and began hiring talent from anywhere. We continue to offer our signature Minnesota-nice, Midwest-friendly attitude, ensuring everyone feels valued, whether or not they're familiar with the skyway system.

Your career grows with us
Working with talented engineers on interesting projects creates an engaging environment for software development enthusiasts. By working directly with our experienced team, participating in our staff development program, and solving complex problems across a variety of projects, you’ll find numerous opportunities for long-term career growth.

At Emergent Software, your ideas will be heard, you will grow exponentially as a master of your craft, and you will enjoy working other dedicated team members to deliver software solutions for our clients.

Check out what others say
Visit our Glassdoor page to discover how employees enjoy our remote working structure, flexible hours, profit sharing program, and more!

#EmergentSoftware

In this role, you will design and implement cloud-based data warehouse and analytics solutions in Microsoft Azure to help clients solve complex business challenges.